POP GOES THE FAMILY MAN By Matthew Krouse www.daville.co.za
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he artist known simply as FRINGE completed a year-long rollout of prints in May. He released a print a month – twelve in total – in his conceptual Facsimile series that reflected with pop iconography on family values, isolation and art practice in the time of the Covid pandemic. The irony of using the age-old fax as a springboard for making messages to humanity opened a universe of possibility. What does an anonymous, cult figure like FRINGE have to say, in a time of lockdown, about a life-experienced in confinement? Perhaps, through his eyes we can learn something, given that he spends all of his time creating in total isolation anyway. The fried eggs, Warholesque bananas and sprayed hearts, that adorn the Facsimile series, illustrate the texts’ overriding conclusion that family values, artistic pursuits and individualistic loves are the keys to a happy marriage – with oneself. In the five years that Fringe has been practicing under his pseudonym he has seen a remarkable rise in fortune and reputation. Three sold-out solo exhibitions later, at the Daville Baillie Gallery in Lorentzville Johannesburg, he is exhibited in Europe with galleries in Berlin, Paris and London. His ironic pop pastiches seem to defy locality. Taking his universal appeal into new mediums, this year FRINGE released an editioned series of sculptures that appear to mourn the passing of time in the life of a child. Gutinke Meine (My Sweetest Darling), created in bronze and polyurethane, is softness made solid. The metaphorical essence of the work monumentalises the joyful moments of childhood, epitomised in the fantasy of animals as companions and friends. Mickey Escher, 100cm x 100cm, oil on canvas, 2020
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